How to Stay ON Track (and NOT derail yourself!)

To another episode on complicating business, we are here today to talk about how to stay on track. The first note I had about this episode was that I was going to call it how to stop shooting yourself in the foot. Because that's really what I think about with dance. It's all about how to not derail yourself, not get distracted by the shiny objects, how to actually stick with whatever it is you're trying to do, because I know what happens, you start and stop, you finally get a process in order, and then you don't use it, you have everything organized, you're going well, and then all of a sudden you find yourself, you know, doing something entirely different. And you have to figure out what's going on. 

Today, this is what we're going to talk about. To be able to stop, to really yourself, stop shooting yourself in the foot stop starting over continuously. There are really four simple steps. A thing I want you to know to start with is all of the things that we're going to talk about today are not about what you're doing. This is not about actions. This is about thinking, when we are derailing ourselves, when we are trying to stay on track, and we're not getting there. It's because of the way we're thinking not because of something we're not doing or we're doing wrong. It's not a process problem. 99% of the time, it's a thought process. And so this is a really direct your mindset kind of thing. And I know it's like well, but that's very squishy. 

It's not actually if business success was really about just the domain about doing the right things in the right order, everybody would do it. Like if it didn't have a mindset component, we wouldn't be talking about it. Because you would just there would be somebody with a plan that says do it this thing in this order, and we would all do it, it would work and we make billions of dollars and everybody would be happy. But it's not that simple. There is a mindset component. And we have to do this. So if you are in the place where you can't stay on track, really struggling with it. Here are the four steps. The first step is to know your own brain, you have to know what's going on in there. Here's why. 

When we are uncomfortable, our brain tries to protect us. So what it does is it finds things to do besides what we're uncomfortable about, right? It's like when you're supposed to be sending an email, and suddenly you find yourself cleaning the bathroom. Maybe that's just me. But I bet you do things like that, too. So when we're uncomfortable, our brain finds things to distract us and delay us. When we are scared. We find reasons not to do things. They may not make any sense. If we thought about like I was going to do this, and I'm doing this instead, you'd be like why? What's happening here? That's what happens with fear.

 We do stuff that doesn't make any sense. We find other things to do we find things to distract us. In we also find all the reasons why not like I was talking to a client the other day, and she was like, Well, I know I shouldn't be making more offers. But I really think that we're I can make more offers, I need to fix my website. I need to think about my email marketing differently. And I need a different audience. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't need any of that. Making offers is is just scary. And that's her brain trying to find something else to do because she's afraid that she's uncomfortable. And that's fine. 

What we have to do in knowing our brains is know what our behaviors look like. So what do you do? What's your tendency when not uncomfortable when you're afraid? I have a dear friend who's a colleague, and when she gets uncomfortable, what she does is she decides she's talking to the wrong people. Should I you know, I think I'm just not talking to the right people with them. And we go through the cycle, and then all of a sudden she's like, Oh, wait, strapping the right people on Yeah, you were just scared for me. I have another friend who the minute she gets uncomfortable. She's like, Well, I'm gonna go think about it in my journal for you know, three weeks. Right? She just stops until she can write her way through it. But she's just uncomfortable and she's gonna be uncomfortable and eventually what she comes to is she's going to be uncomfortable. And then she restarts but it makes the process really long right? It makes her feel like she stops stop start stop there.

 What do you do when they're uncomfortable? For me? I know I'm uncomfortable if I start a lot of things in finishing on them. I know I am uncomfortable if I am finding any reason to get up from my desk. Any at all like I will commit bathroom, I will need to do laundry, I don't need to look for something in the garage, I will need to run an errand, I will need to review old content, see what I can repurpose. I could find you a million things that I could do other than that thing I'm supposed to be doing. Whenever I have something that's like lingering on my to do this, because I've been finding the noise and whatnot. Odds are that it's because I'm uncomfortable, and I'm afraid. So for me. That's what that looks like. First step is knowing, right? Know your brain, know what happens when you get uncomfortable. Second step in step, you're gonna be like, I roll, I roll, don't I roll when you can't actually I don't care. 

My kids do it all the time, they're still going to have to listen. So the second step is nice. Here's the thing. This is normal. When you get uncomfortable, your brain wants to distract you. Welcome to being human. You notice when you're uncomfortable or afraid, you go to other views. Okay? This is everybody. We are never as human beings 100% on track, you're not going to get there. I'm not going to get there. And because of that, I can be nice about it. It's like now I used to go, Gosh, Sarah. Oh, there you are, again, like doing something totally different. Like what do you do and get together to mine? That didn't help. didn't help at all like to help anybody. We do it all the time. But it doesn't it. As a teacher, I know that as a mom, I knew that I couldn't help my kids do more when I'm like short with them. I can give myself acting times. 

So instead of Dear God, what are you doing? It's like, oh, hey, you know what, this must be really uncomfortable. Okay, you know, when we're uncomfortable, we get distracted, sometimes that's alright. But now that we notice, we're gonna go back to what we should be doing. That's it. That's all it is. theme, find yourself and standard, a little bit of grace, it will go a long way because your brain then isn't like she was mean and I'm scared, right? Like, we don't have to be extra about it, we can just be like, okay, in being scared is normal. Right, we're gonna, when no one's on track 100% of time we all shoot ourselves in the foot, we all get distracted, we all delayed do this. This is not ever something you're gonna get rid of. It's okay. 

The whole idea here is noticing what happens in your brain to be to things to notice faster. So to shorten the length of time that it takes you to go from like, Oh, I'm uncomfortable and doing something totally weird distract myself to like, Oh, I'm gonna get back on track, the shorter we can make that window better. And to make a detour less painful. So like think about it, I always describe it to people as getting off of Space Mountain and onto the roller coaster. Like we want it to just be like a gentle roller coaster, a very short one, maybe one story has, like not a big deal. Really easy peasy.

 We don't want to get on the scariest roller coaster on the slopes. This is about slowing it down, making the process work more effectively. And keeping the detour short. That's all it is. Because there are going to be detours, you can't deny that but we can make sure it's like more subtle curve in the room. That's really what we're doing. That's step two, step three, is to find a way to practice wins. So for me, it is my journal. It's the way I check in on what's going on in my brain. And actually, one of the things I know is when I'm really uncomfortable, I do not want to journal, I do not want to put pen to paper because I know something will come out and I'll be like, so I would I have learned is that I have to do it every day. 

Because if I start avoiding it, it means I'm afraid of something delayed. And I'm like off track, right. So that's that signals to me. Like, I don't want to go on my journalist. I know there's something I got to deal with in I have created the practice that I do every day. And so then I deal with things. So it's what you're going to do to check in. And notice, for me, it's my journal, I also get coached, which is a huge way to do this. I have clients come to me sometimes I'll be like, Okay, guys, listen, this is the second week in a row that your comments are not doing this thing. And I don't know why. Now we have to figure it out. Because sometimes it's three, four weeks a month, before we ourselves, notice what's going on. But me as a coach, you know, week one, I'm like, Okay, why not? And if there's a possible reason, great. 

The second week, it's like what else is happening? Because you know, this is something you really want to do and you're just not doing it. So what if what's happened? It's, it's about having somebody perceives you outside of yourself. The other thing you can have and I have this with a couple of people is some like Hollywood accountability. So I have a couple of friends that we meet every few weeks we have for years. And we all know each other champions, like when one of them will say like, you know, like, oh gosh, I really need to do this differently. We all kind of go like, no, no, absolutely no, you know, the same old thing, like get back on what you were doing and you're gonna be fine. So any kind of version of that you can also be I have all three. Like, they all serve me in different ways.

 All three are useful, but you need to create some kind of practice that will help Morris because once you know the triggers and then seeing them, then the beach were shorter, right. And then the last thing is just to practice. But the only way we get better at noticing that we're off track, is by noticing. I mean, I wish it was more that I wish there was something different to tell you there. Because it really is that simple. The only way we get better at this is noticing, I have been working on this for myself as a business owner for four or five years. And now I'm pretty good at it. It doesn't mean I'm perfect. 

There are times my coach will be like, um, what's happening here? And what the minute she says that I'm serious. So it's important to have somebody noticing. But the more you practice it, the more you build your processes that helped me notice the last year like, oh, oh, where am I? What am I doing? It really helps to practice this thing. It's a practice. It's not a perfect, they don't call it a perfect like we don't go to baseball, perfect. My kids. I never went to swim perfect. And even in college, I don't perfect anything. I practice all the things, parenting, business, coaching all the things, it's a practice, not a perfect. So for you, how do you want to practice? And how do you want to continue to be kind of yourself along the way, because what's gonna happen is that as you do this cycle, this a cycle, you know, our race, and create some kindness, we practice awareness, or we find a way to build some awareness and we practice it. And then we notice some new way that we're Shanghai and ourselves that we're like taking ourselves off track. And then we sort of create some kindness. 

With that, find a way to be aware of it. And we practice that, like it's a continually building cycle and get a little bit better and a little bit better by refining it. And that's really the key here. So for you get out of your way wants to Yes, you get out of your way in order to be in your way less. It's all about noticing what's happening in your brain. It's not what you're doing. It's what you're thinking. So if you have questions, send a message. If this is a really useful episode,

 I would love if you shared it or if you subscribed, that would be an honor. I am delighted always to be a resource for you. If you're not in my Facebook group, it's called uncomplicated business for teachers offered in diverse calm play with us. And if you would rather watch these podcasts, or maybe you already are on YouTube, please continue to do that. You can subscribe to the channel there too. And always know, just as a note over the summer, podcasts are gonna be every two weeks instead of one because it's summer and I'm trying to do summer in my computer. So we're going to make things a little bit lighter over here, but I'm sure I'll have a billion ideas because I just said that and I'll see you in jeans.